My counter strike to their wave of terrorism is to buy ant bait. What happens is this: you place the ant “hotel” on the ground; the unsuspecting insects are drawn in by the sweet lure of the bait within. They bring it back to the colony, where it is promptly fed to the Oprah-sized queen, who gobbles it up, unaware it will be her last meal. She gets poisoned and goes to that big ant farm in the sky. With the whole system in anarchy, the colony falls apart and the ants die off, leaving me license to drop all the raisins on the ground I wish.
Oddly, I feel a little bad for the poor sucker ant that is simply doing his job and inadvertently introduces the poison to his creepy peers. One of those diligent little workers is going to be the individual who brings down the whole colony. I can imagine his excitement at discovering the cache of bait-food. He probably thought he would get a promotion for discovering such an awesome food source. With pride, he brings the granule through the tunnels, passing it along to other servants until it eventually finds its way to the queen’s enormous pie-hole. The poor sap was probably a-twitter with self-confidence and had no way to know he was being set up. Of course, he probably has no way of recognizing his actions DID ruin the queendom, though he certainly is in a world of hurt once she is gone. That poor dope just made the mistake of coming into my house and lingering there a bit too long.
I certainly hope the ant’s experience never becomes a metaphor for our human existence, with some higher power setting up “bait” just to have us end up screwed in the end. Enjoy your moment in the sun, little anty! (or in this case, your moment in the glow of my bathroom lights). It took a whole arsenal of human ingenuity to defeat you (the scientists who developed the poison, the guy who packaged it, the truck driver who brought it to the store, the stock boy who put it on the shelf, and I who bought it and strategically placed it). May you never rejoice in the discovery of another sweet morsel carelessly dropped on my floor!
